Left the Pieces
by J. Maria
Summary: Her life with the Doctor and Rose might be over, but her life with alien terrors is just beginning.  Part Six in the 'Nine's First Fallen Companion' series.


Title: Left the Pieces  
Author: Jmaria  
Rating: FR-13  
Disclaimer: Joss owns Buffyverse, Davies owns the newest bits of the Whoverse  
Spoilers: Post Chosen, Doomsday and just before the events of Everything Changes and Day One  
Characters: Dawn Summers, Captain Jack Harkness  
Summary: Her life with the Doctor and Rose might be over, but her life with alien terrors is just beginning.  
Words: 2272  
A/N: Sequel to To Save a Life

**__**

Left the Pieces

Rose Tyler was dead. Two years after Dawn had left the Doctor and his blonde companion in order to stay alive, the girl she;d entrusted the Doctor to was dead. Hundreds of people were dead from the invasion of the Daleks and Cybermen. There was even a memorial to them. People wanted to memorialize the dead, no matter what the cover-up story was.

That was how Dawn found out her friends were dead. Mickey Smith, the boy who loved Rose too much was dead. Jackie Tyler, the woman who'd helped her cope through those few months after she left the Doctor and who had become like a second mother to her, had also been lost. Everything, everyone that connected her to the Doctor was gone. There was no one left to help fill the void.

She stood in front of the memorial to those lost in the battle at the Torchwood Tower, her eyes glistening as she traced her fingers over the names there. Her second family was all but gone. Except for the Doctor, where or when ever he was. She wondered who would hold his hand now that both of his girls were gone. A tear trickled down her cheek as she thought of him being so very alone again, like he had been when he found her.

"Come here often?" The American voice startled her out of her thoughts. Dawn jerked her head up to find a dashingly handsome man in a odd coat giving her a smile dentists would drool over. And anyone with a pulse, actually. "No, can't go using a corny old line like that. I'm Captain Jack Harkness, and you have a very lovely face."

He held out his hand to her and Dawn reluctantly took it in her own. Her skin tingled at the contact. She hadn't tingled like that since she left the TARDIS for good. It was weird.

"Uh, thanks. I think," Her mind flashed back to the vampire boy she'd gotten her first kiss from. There was something very off about this guy. "I didn't have a lot to do with the design."

"I've seen you before, haven't I?"

"I doubt it," She took a step back, only to have him move one forward.

"What's your name, maybe it'll jog my memory?"

"Dawn Summers," she frowned at him. What was it about this guy - other than the hottie factor - that made her skin tingle?

"Dawn Summers," Jack said softly, repeating her name again as if that would make him remember her better. His eyes widened a bit, looking past her to where her hand still rested on the memorial. "You traveled with the Doctor and Rose."

"What?" Dawn took a step forward this time, not caring if she was invading his personal space. Jack didn't take a step back either. "How do you know that?"

"I've seen your picture in Rose's little room in the TARDIS. At a rave on some distant moon, with the Doctor glowering at all the boys who were watching you," Jack spoke softly, and there was something in his voice that made her heart break a little more. She'd heard it in her own voice often enough to recognize it.

"Do you want to get a cup of coffee or something?"

"That sounds like a fabulous idea."

Fifteen minutes later they were tucked into a little back corner table of her favorite coffee shop. They hadn't spoken much during the walk, not knowing quite what to say or how much they really wanted to be overheard.

"You traveled with the Doctor?" Dawn asked, feeling completely stupid.

"Yeah," Jack replied. "They picked me up a few months after you'd gone, I guess. I saved Rose from a barrage balloon during the London Blitz."

"So, you're from the past, then?" Dawn frowned.

"Not technically. I'm a 51st century boy," Jack grinned.

"Ah, the flexible kind," Dawn smiled, remembering her own little trip to the 51st century.

"You've been?"

"Yep. Okay, so you traveled with the Doctor, and you're from the future. Still doesn't explain why my skin tingles when I'm around you."

"I make you tingle?" Jack grinned wolfishly at her, which made her laugh all the more.

"Yeah, but not that way, Jack," When she saw that Jack wasn't buying that as enough of an answer, she continued. "Okay, so not only that way. You make my skin tingle, and only one other thing has ever done that."

"Is it shiny and have three speed settings?"

"Are you always this perverted?"

"I call it well-balanced."

"And I'd call it unbalanced. It was the TARDIS. Only the TARDIS made my skin hum like that."

"I haven't been around it for a very long time," Jack lowered his eyes.

"They left you," she breathed out, the realization hitting her.

"They left you," he countered.

"He did it to save my life."

"He left me for dead."

Dawn leaned back in her seat, her eyes tearing up a bit at the pain they both shared. Jack stared down at his hands for a moment, before looking back up at her.

"You loved him, didn't you?" he asked.

"Yeah. I really did. Didn't you?" Dawn sniffled, stirring her coffee with the little brown plastic stirrer.

"I loved them both," Jack smiled.

"I didn't want to like her at first. Rose was the girl he picked up while I was having a family crisis. She was the slightly younger, blonder version of me," Dawn laughed. "I was so jealous at first, because she was meant to replace me."

"Replace you?"

Dawn looked down at her coffee. He'd traveled with the Doctor, and she believed that he'd suffered the same heartbreak she had, but she wasn't sure how much she could tell him about being the Key.

"Traveling with the Doctor - did something to me. The TARDIS was connecting with me for some reason and it was slowly killing me. I started fainting and blacking out after about two months of traveling. After he picked up Rose, it started getting worse. The black outs got longer, then dizzy spells, all the works. A few months after the Slitheen tried to destroy the world, I had a really bad spell. I was out for hours, and he came to me and said that I had to go.?

"And you went."

"Didn't have much choice in the matter. The TARDIS sealed up my room after I gathered a few of my things. I hugged her and kissed him and plastered a fake-ass grin on my face as I walked away. That was the last time I saw them."

"I kissed them both and went off to fight the Daleks, and I died," Jack murmured.

"Daleks," Dawn shuddered at the thought. She remembered seeing them in the news coverage months back. Something hit her. "Wait, you _died_?"

"Yep, and then something brought me back. I got to the Doctor just in time to see the TARDIS vanish. I fought tooth and nail to get back to this time period and I've been waiting for the Doctor to fix me."

"Fix you?"

"I can't die. I've been killed so many times now, I can't even begin to count them, and yet I just don't stay dead."

"Sounds like a lot of people I know," Dawn said quietly, her mind thinking back to her family and friends. "What are you doing until you find him?"

"I've been working for Torchwood."

"You've been _what_? The idiots who got us stuck with the Cybermen and the Daleks and killed everyone?"

"That was Torchwood 1, I work for Torchwood 3, in Cardiff."

"There's nothing in Cardiff but the -" Dawn's eyes widened. "Let me guess, you sit on the Rift hoping the aliens don't try and rip it open?"

"Yeah, pretty much. How did -"

"My sister kinda had a similar job in Sunnydale."

"Sunnydale, Sunnydale, why does that sound familiar?" Jack took another sip of his coffee.

"It was a hellmouth."

"Those aren't real."

"Says the boy who sits on the Cardiff Rift," Dawn couldnt help smiling at him. A stray thought crossed her mind. "Torchwood 3? What happened to the other Torchwood bases?"

"Torchwood 1 was in London, you know what happened there. Uh, Torchwood 2 is an office in Glasgow with a very strange little man, Torchwood 3 is in Cardiff, and we lost Torchwood 4, but it'll probably pop back up again someday."

"Wow."

"And your hellmouth?"

"Hellmouths. Sunnydale, California was our first, followed by Haverbrook which was a little town outside of Cleveland."

"Ohio. Sounds like a blast."

"I didn't live there all that long. I finished high school and half of university in Rome. And then I went to Haverbrook. I was there when I met the Doctor. He was going on about the weirdest things. It was all fruit with him -"

"Let me guess, bananas?" Jack grinned at her, remembering the banana in his pocket story.

"No, the bananas are my fault completely. I guess he'd never really eaten one before I made peanut butter and banana tostados for him. It was prunes he was raving about. Kept trying to persuade this Kothlar demon that they were nature's sweet elixir."

"Prunes? Really?" Jack laughed loudly, slapping a hand on his thigh. "That explains part of why he was such a grump when I met up with him. And why he was fascinated with bananas."

"He still ate them when he was with you?" Dawn asked, her voice quiet and small.

"For the time I was with him, yes."

The rest of the half hour was spent swapping stories about various stops along their far-flung adventures. Jack glanced at his watch several times, and Dawn made note of it. He gave her a small frown, and Dawn sighed heavily.

"Something wrong, Jack?" Dawn asked, tapping her fingers against the Styrofoam cup.

"I'm sorry, Dawn," Jack said quietly. "I know how you feel, but I can't have you remember this. What I do is too important -"

"I haven't taken a single sip from this cup since you gave it to me. I know there's some mind-altering, memory-erasing alien based drug in it."

"How -"

"I've been to the 51st century, Jack. Nobody trusts anyone there, and if you were a Time Agent then I know you guys are the love 'em, leave 'em and dont forget to Mind Wipe 'em."

"You've met a Time Agent?" Jack asked.

"Yeah. It's a bit hazy, cause he mind wiped me after being fun and flexible with me," Dawn murmured. She hadn't been half in love with the Doctor then, and the handsome Time Agent from the future had been too irresistible for a 21st century girl. The Doctor had been angry, and had almost dropped her back on Earth for that little indiscretion.

"Dawn -"

"Jack, I'm not gonna go blabbing your big secret to the world. I've got my own little secret agency to protect. I - I really can't have you wipe away this meeting. I finally found someone who's met the Doctor and who understands my loss. So please, don't do this."

"Dawn -"

"Jack. You need people in your life that can remind you of what makes you human, a reason for going through the struggle or giving a damn about something other than yourself. A reason to care. I figured it out," Dawn murmured, echoing words she'd heard her sister say to her so very long ago. "The Doctor surrounded himself with people like you and me and Rose, and to an extent like Jackie and Mickey, so that he could remember why he saved and helped other people and creatures. He needed a reminder of what good creatures are capable of and look at us now, Jack. He left us behind, and we're still trying to be like him. You work for Torchwood and sit on the Rift to help save humanity. I work on a Hellmouth and help save humanity."

"What has that got to do with me Mind Wiping you?" Jack asked, leaning forward curiously.

"It's got everything to do with it. I need to know that the Companion line didn't end with Rose. That I'm not all thats left. You knew my Doctor. You were with him. I've lost them all - Rose, Jackie, Mickey and the Doctor. I can't lose you, Jack. You're all I've got left."

Dawn had left first, her card with her mobile number on the table between them. Jack ignored the vibrating of his own phone. He knew it was Suzie and knew it was about the glove. In the end, he slipped the piece of paper in his pocket and made his way back to headquarters, tipping the contents of the still-full cup into the flowerbed outside the café. He hadn't erased her memory of him or of the day, still deciding on what story to tell Ianto when he asked about erasing any trace evidence she might have on her person. He would just tell him that the girl really knew nothing and that he'd just felt like flexing his flirting muscles.

He didn't want to admit that he too didn't want to lose another connection to the Doctor and Rose. He didn't have any other connections to lose, having never met Jackie and the brief meeting with Mickey hadn't endeared him to the younger - or older, depending on how he looked at it - man. Dawn had known them, had loved them and had lost each and every one of them. He slipped her card into the pocket just over his heart, for safekeeping.


End file.
